In the study group, VEGF concentration was significantly positively correlated with the same blood parameters as white blood cells, platelets, plateletcrit, apolipoprotein B, total and LDL cholesterol fraction. The plaque of common carotid arteries and bifurcation was present in 39% of CAD patients, however, there was no significant association between VEGF plasma concentration and any measured parameters in Doppler ultrasound of carotid and peripheral arteries. CONCLUSIONS The circulating VEGF is only marginally associated with an increased risk for atherosclerosis.PURPOSE This study was conducted to evaluate the potential role of shear wave elastography (SWE) in the evaluation of testes in patients with varicocele. METHODS A total of 116 testes of 58 patients with left-sided varicocele and 58 testes of 29 age-matched healthy controls were included in the study. The patients' testes were classified into groups A (normospermic) and B (oligospermic) based on the presence of oligospermia. The mean SWE values and volume of the testes with varicocele were compared with the contralateral normal testes of the patients and the testes of healthy controls. RESULTS The mean SWE value of the left testes in groups A (4.77±1.16 kPa) and B (6.15±1.96 kPa) exceeded that of the healthy controls (3.79±0.94 kPa) (P less then 0.001). The mean SWE value of the left testes in group B (6.15±1.96 kPa) exceeded that of group A (4.77±1.16 kPa) (P=0.002). No correlation was observed between testicular stiffness and the grade of varicocele (r=0.102, P=0.423). CONCLUSION The testes with varicocele were stiffer than the contralateral testes and the testes of healthy controls, and SWE might play an auxiliary role to conventional ultrasonography in assessing pathologic alterations in the testis owing to varicocele.Background Tobacco smoking is the most preventable cause of diseases and death in older adults. This study aimed to evaluate the factors associated with the intention to quit smoking in elderly Korean men. Methods We investigated 813 male smokers aged 65 years or more from the 5th and 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010-2015. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors related with smoking cessation intention. https://www.selleckchem.com/ Results Of the respondents, 26.3% had the intention to quit smoking. After adjustment for confounding factors, the intention to quit smoking was significantly associated with a history of ischemic heart disease (adjusted odds ratio, 1.88; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-3.48). Conclusion Identifying the factors related to the intention to quit smoking among older adults can help in developing effective smoking cessation strategies for this section of the population.Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used in a wide variety of real-world applications and it emerges as a promising field across various branches of medicine. This review aims to identify the role of ANNs in spinal diseases. Literature were searched from electronic databases of Scopus and Medline from 1993 to 2020 with English publications reported on the application of ANNs in spinal diseases. The search strategy was set as the combinations of the following keywords "artificial neural networks," "spine," "back pain," "prognosis," "grading," "classification," "prediction," "segmentation," "biomechanics," "deep learning," and "imaging." The main findings of the included studies were summarized, with an emphasis on the recent advances in spinal diseases and its application in the diagnostic and prognostic procedures. According to the search strategy, a set of 3,653 articles were retrieved from Medline and Scopus databases. After careful evaluation of the abstracts, the full texts of 89 eligible papers wractice may improve clinical decision making.The coronavirus outbreak was labeled a pandemic by the World Health Organization in 2020. Patients who require spine surgery should receive coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) screening to prevent nosocomial cross-infection before surgery. However, spine fracture and spinal injury are critical and serious, and there are no standard protocols for management. This article aims to propose a treatment algorithm for the management of traumatic spine fracture during the COVID-19 pandemic.Interleukin-9 (IL-9) is well known for its role in allergic inflammation. For cancer, both pro- and anti-tumor effects of IL-9 were controversially reported, but the impact of IL-9 on tumor metastasis has not yet been clarified. In this study, IL-9 was expressed as a secretory form (sIL-9) and a membrane-bound form (mbIL-9) on B16F10 melanoma cells. The mbIL-9 was engineered as a chimeric protein with the transmembrane and cytoplasmic region of TNF-α. The effect of either mbIL-9 or sIL-9 expressing cells were analyzed on the metastasis capability of the cancer cells. After three weeks of tumor implantation into C57BL/6 mice through the tail vein, the number of tumor modules in lungs injected with IL-9 expressing B16F10 was 5-fold less than that of control groups. The percentages of CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, NK cells, and M1 macrophages considerably increased in the lungs of the mice injected with IL-9 expressing cells. Among them, the M1 macrophage subset was the most significantly enhanced. Furthermore, peritoneal macrophages, which were stimulated with either sIL-9 or mbIL-9 expressing transfectant, exerted higher anti-tumor cytotoxicity compared with that of the mock control. The IL-9-stimulated peritoneal macrophages were highly polarized to M1 phenotype. Stimulation of RAW264.7 macrophages with sIL-9 or mbIL-9 expressing cells also significantly increased the cytotoxicity of those macrophages against wild-type B16F10 cells. These results clearly demonstrate that IL-9 can induce an anti-metastasis effect by enhancing the polarization and proliferation of M1 macrophages.The specific pathogenesis underlining inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is very complicated, and it is further more difficult to clearly explain the pathophysiology of 2 major forms of IBD, Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), and both disorders affect individuals throughout life. Despite every extensive effort, the interplay among genetic factors, immunological factors, environmental factors and intestinal microbes is still completely unrevealed. Animal models are indispensable to find out mechanistic details that will facilitate better preclinical setting to target specific components involved in the pathogenesis of IBD. Based on many recent reports, dysbiosis of the commensal microbiota is implicated in the pathogenesis of several diseases, not only IBD but also colon cancer, obesity, psoriasis as well as allergic disorders, in both human and animal models. Advanced technologies including cell-specific and inducible knockout systems, which are recently employed to mouse IBD models, have further enhanced the ability of developing new therapeutic strategies for IBD.